Apple App Store still making nearly twice as much money as Google Play Store

The latest App Annie report shows that Google still trails Apple when it comes to app income — but the gap is getting closer.

The same report also shows that the gap is closing between the number of Android apps downloaded as compared to iOS apps.

Regardless of which OS you use, the App Annie report makes one thing clear: mobile apps are as big as ever and only going to get more lucrative.

The Google Play Store is the largest mobile app distribution platform in the world, without question. However, being the biggest doesn’t mean being the most profitable. As the latest report from App Annie shows, despite the Play Store’s reign when it comes to the number of available apps, the Apple App Store still makes a lot more money.

How much more money? According to App Annie, in Q1 of 2018, the Apple App Store pulled in 85 percent more cash than the Google Play Store, which means iOS users spend almost twice as much money on apps as Android users.

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What is especially remarkable about this 85 percent number is that it’s actually good news for Google. Even though it can seem daunting to be that far behind when it comes to app spending, Google is doing better than it has since Q1 of 2016 in that regard. In fact, between Q4 of 2017 and today, Google narrowed the gap of app spending by ten percentage points and grew spending 25% year over year.

But don’t break out the celebratory champagne quite yet. Where Google dominates as compared to Apple is the sheer numbers of apps and app installs that happen each year via the Google Play Store. According to this new report, it appears Apple is catching up in that regard.

In Q1 of 2018, There were 19.2 billion downloads on the Google Play Store and 8.2 billion downloads on the Apple App Store. Those numbers narrow the gap between Apple and Google by ten percentage points.

In other words, Google is catching up to Apple when it comes to making money, but Apple is catching up to Google when it comes to the number of downloads.

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Regardless of whether you are on team Android or team Apple, the App Annie report demonstrates how incredibly popular and lucrative the two mobile app distribution platforms really are. Combined, both stores nabbed about 27.5 billion downloads — a new record — and saw consumers spend $18.4 billion, all in Q1 alone.

With users spending about three hours a day in apps and accessing about 40 apps per month, we can only expect those numbers to climb ever higher as the years progress.